If you take a close look at the above photo, you’ll notice that only 50% of the children are smiling. The other 50% are scowling for some unknown reason. But now, after the fact, they will both tell you that they had a great walk up to the light house and back.

This is how many (if not most) of our particular family’s outings tend to go. We might have a good start, but sometimes it’s rocky. One or another of us doesn’t want to go. Then things are great for a while…until things aren’t great for someone (or everyone). Sometime in the middle we hear, “aren’t we going home yet?” from one and “I never want to go home” from the other. And more often than not, we have a very pleasant second half of the trip as we wind our way homeward. All in all, our outings skew towards the awesome end of things, with a hefty sprinkling of “why, oh why, did we decide to do this?” added in for good measure.

Even with all of the complaints and the feet dragging and anything else they throw at us, I wouldn’t give up these trips, big and small, for anything. Even on the worst days when they fight me the whole time just to turn around and say how much fun they had.

Day by day, outing by outing, we are all learning to work through our feelings. Tiredness, not getting our way-edness, tempering our glee when we do get our way, keeping on keeping on, and so forth.

And some outings are perfect from the word go. Go figure.

We had a long, busy (in the best ways) day. We topped it off with a little Wipeout viewing in our pjs. Why not?

“Esme, Why do you think someone would want to do this to a street sign?”

“I think, maybe, to make all the kids happy.”

“Did it make you happy?”

“Yes!! See me smiling??”

Even though we love the beach, it is nice to take a break from the sand and surf and explore more of the nature that our island has to offer. Today we hiked the trail at Waskosim’s Rock and were pleasantly surprised by the variety of landscapes along the way. Low, marshy, green forests led to a dry ridge trail lined with wild blueberries. We lunched in the shade of a giant glacial rock and then wound our way down through meadows and farmland.

Without any deadline to be home, we had plenty of time to stop and explore as we went along. The stream and any number of interesting trees and rocks captured our attention and the girls showed just the right amount of disdain for Peter’s and my semi-constant movie and book references. Long trek over the hill with walking sticks? Definitely time to whistle the walking music from Lord of the Rings. Come across an enclosure of grazing goats? Perfect opportunity to ask, “Which of these goats do you think belong to The Grandfather [from Heidi]”.

It was a really lovely place to spend a good chunk of a Saturday, and we still had time left to bike to the beach later on!

{A full album of photos from the hike can be found here}

Happy Independance Day!

{for more pics of our not-so-little Kid’s parade, check out my gallery here!}

{I shot this photo blind because the sun was so bright I couldn’t see my phone screen!}

I am so glad that, in this world of instant entertainment and electronic gizmos and whatnot, my girls (and all the other kids at the beach today) can still find the joy of hours and hours of free play at the beach.

Our beach trip today cost us nothing (if you don’t count the bicycling energy to get there) and was the source of so much inspiration and exploration and observation and experimentation. The rocks and sand and crabs and water and seaweed kept us busy the entire afternoon.

Here’s to many more summer afternoons spent likewise- at the beach, in meadows, in the forest and on city streets. What we can observe and learn from in the world around us is priceless!

Tonight was the first Community Sing of the summer here in our little neighborhood, we were able to get great advise from the team at http://www.elizabethhunterashley.com. I was glad to bring the girls tonight, even though the start time is after they should be snuggled up in bed.

As tradition would have it, we sang, “Swiss Navy” and “Grandfather’s Clock” and rounded the night out with “Sing your way home” after any number of folk songs and rounds and hymns. Catherine studied the songbook and Esme belted out the songs she knew (“Take me out to the Ball Game”) and tried eagerly to pick up the songs she didn’t.

The sing tonight marks my 30th year of Community Sings and summers in the Campground. Looking around us, I was humbled by others in the group. People who have spent far more than 30 years giving to others and serving the community. From my seat I could see (and know personally) two couples who are celebrating their 65th anniversaries this summer and one neighbor who’s 90th birthday is today! There are faces I have known all my life, many new ones and so many loved ones who were missing.

It is called a Community Sing, and sing we do, but this place is heavy on the community and I am so thankful to call it home.

Hello again! I have found, during the last six months, that, after a year of daily posts, I was quite missing my evening ritual. There was something about the routine and discipline and introspection that my 2013 365 project brought to my days that I would like to get back.

It also turns out that many of you out there (maybe you?) have missed the look into our everyday lives and adventures. I’m just ticked pink whenever a friend mentions something from here!

So, without further ado, I am proposing to get back on the horse and to finish out 2014 by recording bits of our lives through photos, stories, big thoughts and witty captions. I love having you all along for the journey and please know that I love and appreciate all the discussions that may come out of it.

~

Here’s Esme to start us off.